Yesterday I blogged on Mark Tooley's piece on the religious left's modestly named "Pentecost 2006" event. No word on whether anyone at the event spoke in tongues. Evidently TypePad had a hiccup yesterday and the post was lost. Thanks to my infallible memory I will now re-type it word for word. If you believe that, let me tell you another.
I had previously commented on Barak Obama's speech on the role of religion in political life. See Joe Knippenberg for some wise words on the same subject. Obama was apparently at "Pentecost 2006," but his fellow speakers did not exactly meet Obama's standard of coherent thought. Some snippets:
Here's Howard Dean:
"We're here [today], back in the '50s in the McCarthy era," Mr. Dean complained, "In the time when there wasn't [sic] civil rights, at a time when there was an authoritarian government that felt they deserved everything and that nobody needed to know anything."
First, is Howard Dean unaware of the fact that a civil rights revolution did indeed occur? Also, the evidence that we are not actually living in under an authoritarian government is that Howard Dean can call the government authoritarian firm in the knowledge that he will face no reprisal. Dean's rhetoric is reckless and needlessly inflammatory. This language is unbecoming of a man in Dean's position of responsibility.
How about Hillary?
Jim Wallis enthusiastically introduced [Sen. Clinton] as "someone who quotes Matthew 25 often, and she quotes it right!" By this reference, of course, Mr. Wallis meant that Ms. Clinton rightly understands Christ's supposed commands about enlarging federal welfare programs.
"I missed the Sunday school lesson about how we help the poor by giving tax cuts to the rich," Ms. Clinton observed sarcastically. "The budget is a moral document!" Ms. Clinton insisted, repeating an old religious left refrain. "Behind those numbers are decisions. How are we going to give a boost up the economic ladder when too many tools have been removed to make that happen."
Like others at the Mr. Wallis event, Ms. Clinton warned against the seductive allure of the religious right. "Don't let people get away with nice words," she implored. "Don't let them quote scripture to you."
I am confused. Jim Wallis praises Sen. Clinton for quoting often and accurately Matthew 25, but then Mrs. Clinton says we shouldn't let people quote scripture to us. Should I not let Mrs. Clinton get away with her "nice words"? Also, I thought the left was opposed to "imposing morality." Now it turns out that Sen. Clinton thinks the federal budget is $2.7 trillion of moral imposition, and apparently she wants more! See the previous post for thoughts about "imposing morals."
The real winner is Marian Wright Edelman:
More bizarrely, Ms. Edelman adopted the persona of abolitionist Sojourner Truth and began to speak in an attempted slave accent. Ostensibly the old escaped slave woman spoke of social problems as "weasels." Channeling the spirit of the Underground Railroad's most celebrated conductor, Ms. Edelman named today's "big weasels" that are, she believes, embedded in the U.S. Constitution. These constitutional weasels include the "Special Interest Weasel," the "Greedy Military Weasel," the "Robin Hood in Reverse Weasel," and the "Only Right Way to God Weasel."
As Ms. Edelman explained, the "Special Interest Weasel" robs poor children of government funding. The "Greedy Military Weasel" steals from the hungry by demanding money for arms. The "Robin Hood in Reverse Weasel" justifies taking from the poor to give to the rich.
In her description of the "Only Right Way to God Weasel," Ms. Edelman claimed, without further explanation, that the Constitution has permitted religious conservatives to control American religion.
Imagine a meeting of the religious right that used this kind of language? What would we read about them? The claims to moral superiority. The belief that their policy preferences have been endorsed by God. The depiction of their opponents as "weasels."
It seems the honest way to have these debates is as follows. The left can claim accurately that Christ wants us to care for the poor. They can then claim that in their opinion a large welfare state is the best way to obey that commandment. That is different from saying Christ wants a large welfare state. Christ tells us to care for the poor, but he is agnostic on how to go about it. Likewise, all agree that Christ wants us to care for the weakest among us. Religious conservatives believe that includes the unborn. So let’s have a debate about what we owe, if anything, to the unborn.
Thank goodness Joe K. had posted that last bit over at NLT. It saved me from overly taxing my infallible memory.
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